WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS?

    Last night, while looking for something I wrote about a couple of years ago,  Google took me to this blog:

  http://carolejohnston.blogspot.co.uk/

                            I could not believe it, my posts, my pictures, copied to another blog!

We all know that the odd picture is being copied, but this is something else, my whole blog, from the start until earlier this year! 

Carole Johnston, who ever you are, I have found out.

Bloggers are a sharing lot, we like to help each other and that is what is so wonderful about blogging.

But this is not sharing, this is "helping yourself" without a permission and we have other words for that.

What is the girl to do? Delete my blog and possibly start again? Could I be bothered?

I would love to hear your opinion on this subject and if you have had a similar experience.

                                                    Fingerless gloves finished.

They are on my DD's hands and they went home with her. 

Oh well, I just have make another pair....

then there was another

I am referring to a new quilt just completed by Kaaren from The Painted Quilt blog, a beautiful Christmas redwork quilt. Please go and have a look, just click on the name of her blog above.

By a coincidence the latest issue of Quiltmania  magazine arrived today, which I have been eagerly waiting for, to find out how to assemble all the Yoko Saito's Mystery Quilt blocks. I'll get to that in a minute, but there is also an article about Sharon Duffy's home, under the heading Quilts & Enchanting Homes.

And there is another wonderful Christmas redwork quilt hanging up.

And here is my dilemma. This happens every time. Just when I begin to think that I should have a break from quilts and go back to "serious" embroidery, of knitting, of crochet or...., I see a beautiful quilt and the fever starts again. And of course there is another reason - I have not made a redwork quilt, yet.

I can feel a project for next year's Christmas coming on....

But back to my current one. As I have said, I now have the instructions for the assembly of the Mystery quilt, but not only that, also the instructions for block number 6! I didn't know about block 6 (or I did not read something properly?). I my mind I was going to finish the quilt by this Christmas, which now I know will not happen. Block 5 is still very much "work in progress".

So, it is going to take a little longer. Never mind, it will be worth it. I really like the way Yoko finished her quilt, it is original and different, and it doesn't matter that no 2 blocks are the same size. Those of you, who read Quiltmania, know what I am talking about.

I can see myself spending a lot of time stitching after Christmas (you know, that quiet few days between the  Christmas rush ending and the new year starting), when at last you can relax and get some time to yourself. And I also know now what fabric to look for for the background.

There is just another small project in the making right now. The first frost reminded me how my hands feel when it gets really cold. Of course I have a selection of gloves in my draw, but usually I end up not wearing them, because I can't hold things well wearing gloves. Finger-less is the answer, and at last this year I will have a pair! I am using beautifuly soft and warm mix of alpaca and silk from Devon, from Ruth and Belinda, bough last year at one of the shows.

Sunday morning

thankfully it did not last

Have a good week!

spreading the word

Schwalm embroidery - named after a region along the Schwalm River in Germany - is one of my favourite embroideries. I only "discovered" this type of embroidery when I came across Christine Bishop's book a few years ago. Her book is full of beautiful designs and I just had to have it, wanting to "have a go".
However I found difficult to follow her instructions, mainly because the illustrations in this book are hand drawn and not always very clear, and as a novice to Schwalm I did not find this easy. Some of you might remember me writing about it at the time.

I thought I better start with a sampler, which is one of the projects in the book, but eventually I lost interest, I believe due to unclear instructions. It just seemed like too much hard work and I wasn't really enjoying it. Or may be the sampler was the wrong thing to start with. I gave up at this point.

Some time after that I learnt about Luzine Happel, a German lady living not far from the Schwalm region.

Luzine is passionate about Schwalm embroidery. To me she is the "Queen of Schwalm". She has written number of books on the subject. Her instructions are very clear with photographs of the actual stitches.

I am still building up a courage to start working on tablecloth, which is a project in Luzine's book I have.

So why am I writing about his again? Because a little while ago I received an email from Luzine telling me about her new website and I want to share this with you. You can learn there about the history of this beautiful type of whitework, see many examples of old and new, and also many beautiful pictures from the region - all you have to do is click here and enjoy.